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Want to Know When You’re Gonna Die?

Watch an animated graph of your life expectancy over time.
Rachel Pick
New York, US
Image: Nathan Yau

Using Social Security Administration data from 2011, statistician Nathan Yau has created an interactive graphic that can simulate your "possible lifetimes" using only your age and gender.

The ball representing your life travels along a curve, falling at different ages according to your probability of surviving until then. Most balls fall around the average life expectancy for your gender.

As a 27 year-old woman, I can see that the probability of me dying in the next 0-9 years is around 3 percent, while the likelihood of dying in the next 10-19 years is around zero. (Weird!) But I have a 70 percent chance of living at least another 50 years, which sounds exhausting.

As you get older, your probabilities change in your favor—nature's way of recognizing your hardiness and giving you relatively better odds. However, age and gender are the only adjustable metrics, so the graph doesn't account for any personal health problems or vices you might have.

The graph also expects me to retire before I hit 70, which is frankly just blind optimism.